Waiting to Be Seen: Where EM Policy Meets Practice is an EM Cases blog series, authored by Dr. Howard Ovens, a veteran Emergency Department Director, whose main purpose is to share ideas and generate discussion on the role that public policy and administrative practices play in creating the conditions that help front line emergency providers achieve better patient outcomes. You can contact Dr. Ovens at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @HowardOvens.
WTBS 31 ED Triage Physician – Does a Doc Belong at Triage?
Does a doc belong at triage? With emergency department overcrowding and long wait times becoming the norm, placing physicians at triage has gained traction as a potential solution. But does it actually improve patient care, or does it introduce new risks and inefficiencies? In this Waiting to Be Seen blog, Dr. Howard Ovens examines the benefits, medico-legal concerns, and limitations of physician-at-triage models, and proposes a practical alternative that may improve ED flow, make better use of limited physician resources, and provide more continuity of care for patients...
WTBS 30 Lessons on Emergency Medicine Leadership: The Role of The Leader
Dr. Howard Ovens reflects on the role of leader in the EM in this 2nd part of a 2-part Waiting to Be Seen blog series on EM leadership. He touches on mentoring, being committed, aligning with patients' interests, being a role model and a few quick takes on some controversial issues in EM...
WTBS 29 Four Key Learnings from a Career in Emergency Medicine Leadership
In this Waiting to Be Seen blog Dr. Howard Ovens outlines 4 key learnings from his extensive career in EM leadership: Be a good clinician, get substantial real-world experience, take a long-term view of benefits and risks and get along with your counterparts in the leadership dyad...
WTBS 28 I’m OK, How Are You? How can we innovate our way out of this crisis in EM and cope until we do?
In this month's Waiting to Be Seen blog Dr. Howard Ovens outlines challenges, innovations and coping strategies in the EM Crisis...
WTBS 26 COVID-19 Pandemic Lessons on Designing a Better Health Care System: What Does it Mean for Emergency Medicine?
Thomas Friedman’s book The World Is Flat is an exploration of how globalization and modern communications technology have changed the world. Our emergency care systems entered the pandemic on decidedly bumpy terrain; can we use technology and innovation to flatten and protect them—to make them more resilient?
WTBS 27 What Emergency Medicine Network Connections and Coverage Look Like in a Resilient Health Care System
When you apply the same principles of a resilient system (integration, adaptation, self-regulation, diversity, and situational awareness) to stabilizing and innovating emergency medicine care networks, this could also have a broad reach and positive effect on improving outcomes for the populations we serve. Reframing service delivery redesign in a resilient systems context opens a wider spectrum of potential solutions and should seed some more creative and yet pragmatic approaches to closing the large FTE gap in emergency medicine. As COVID-19 has demonstrated, we cannot afford not to....
